Overcrowding rose at Kildare hospital last month
Naas General Hospital
A total of 212 patients were treated on trolleys at Naas General Hospital last month.
This was the highest level of overcrowding at the hospital for the month of February since 2019 when 294 patients were treated on trolleys having been admitted through the accident and emergency department.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has been gathering overcrowding figures at Irish public hospitals since 2006.
These show that the worst February for overcrowding was in 2011 when 457 people were treated on trolleys.
The least number of admissions was last year when the total overcrowding figure was a relatively small 108.
The Naas figure is dwarfed by data from some other hospitals. At University Hospital Limerick there were almost 1,500 patients on trolleys in last month followed by Cork University Hospital (807), Letterkenny University Hospital (766), Galway University Hospital (731) and Sligo University Hospital (618).
According to the INMO nearly 9,900 patients were without a bed in the month of February and this exceeded pre-pandemic levels of 8,515 in 2019.
General secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said it has been an incredibly difficult month in Irish hospitals with consistent overcrowding in all parts of the country.
“Our nurses and midwives are under severe pressure, they are dealing with huge numbers of Covid and non-Covid patients presenting at emergency departments coupled with inadequate staffing levels.”
She added that nurses are “sick of apologising for the state of our health service to patients who have been waiting an unacceptable amount of time to be treated.”
Ms Ní Sheaghdha added that if a patient is on a trolley for more than five hours it can have a significant knock-on impact on their health and their mortality.